Right on track: 2020 Olympian conducts first steeplechase workout since ACL injury
Battle Mountain alumna and Nike-sponsored distance runner Val Constien is hoping to open her outdoor track season at the end of March
Rob Parish/Courtesy photo
Val Constien’s second comeback is right on schedule.
The 2020 steeplechase Olympian conducted her first hurdle workout since injuring her ACL in her Diamond League debut last May.
“It wasn’t anything too special,” she said on her “It’s not like I was jumping over tall barriers or doing any of the water barriers or anything.”
Constien’s coach set up 28-inch plastic hurdles for her to jump over during her 6×300-meter interval session.
“On the first hurdle I stuttered quite a bit going in, but then all the other hurdles after that, I started to gain a lot of confidence,” Constien said. “I felt really good.”
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In 2022, Constien battled through a stress reaction, broken foot, broken calcaneus and long-haul COVID. She came back from all of it to claim an indoor 3k national title in February of 2023 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Then, the Battle Mountain alumna signed her first pro contract with Nike a week before the May 5 Diamond League race in Doha, Qatar.
In Doha, she landed awkwardly in the water pit on the second lap of the steeplechase and hyperextended her knee. While Constien originally thought the injury was just a sprain, it was determined a couple weeks later that she’d torn her ACL. Her surgery at the Steadman Clinic in Vail last spring was chronicled on her Youtube page, where’s she’s given her followers a backstage pass to the recovery and subsequent buildup. During the final week of January, the 27-year-old said she finished a 70-mile training week with “an intense track workout.”
“The fact that I feel good today is a huge win,” she said during a shakeout session at The Buffalo Ranch cross-country course the following day.
With the 2024 Paris Olympics looming, Constien said she will “definitely be racing (an) outdoor (track season)” and hopes to open her season at the end of March.
“I just need to be patient and continue to get fit,” she said on the vlog after admitting to feeling “a bit of FOMO” watching her peers post fast times at a recent elites-only indoor track meet in Boston.
“Man, people ran fast. I want to do that, too,” she continued.
“But who doesn’t.”
